K. Bromberg - Aced

“How can you say that? I’m covered in flour because I tried to make you cookies, which is normally simple, and I failed so epically at that including dropping nearly a whole carton of eggs. And my belly is so big I can’t reach my toes to paint them and they look horrible and I hate when my toes look horrible. I tried to shave today and I can’t even see between my legs to do that and I’m going to go into labor and have all this hair and look like I don’t take care of myself and . . . and . . . we’re having a baby and what if I’m a horrible mother?” I confess all of this as we sit on a flour-covered floor with a dog licking up broken eggs, but the way Colton looks at me? He only sees me.

I take comfort in the thought. That even amid all this chaos swirling around us, my husband only sees me. That I can still stop the blur for him. That I’m still his spark.

Be my spark, Ry.

We sit in silence for a moment, the memory of that night in St. Petersburg clear in my mind, his hand on my cheek, our eyes locked, and it hits me. With him by my side, everything is going to turn out how it’s meant to be. It always has. He knows how to calm my crazy even amidst the wildest of storms.

Colton leans forward and presses a kiss to my belly before placing a soft one on my lips. “C’mon,” he says, grabbing my hands and starting to pull me up when I’d rather just stay right where I am, wallowing in my own self-pity.

“Why?” I ask as I look up at him beneath my lashes, lips pouting.

“We’re going to go make our own kind of normal.” Between the comment and grin he flashes me, I can’t resist him. I never can . He gently pulls me up and before I can process it, he has me cradled in his arms and is walking toward the stairs. “Colton!” I laugh.

“That, right there . . . I’ve missed the sound of that laugh,” he murmurs into the top of my head when we clear the landing.

He carries me into the bedroom and sets me down on the edge of the bed, fluffs a bunch of pillows against the headboard, and then helps me lean back against them. Our eyes hold momentarily—violet to green—and I can tell he’s trying to figure something out. My curiosity is definitely piqued.

“Red or pink?” he asks. I look at him like he’s crazy.

“What?”

“Pick one.”

“Red,” I say with a definitive nod.

“Good choice,” he says as he turns around and disappears into the bathroom. I hear a drawer open, the clank of glass against glass, and then the drawer shut again. Carrying a bath towel in one hand, what appears to be a bottle of nail polish in the other, and a huge grin on his face, he climbs up on the bed and sits at my feet. “At your service, madam.”

I just stare—a little shocked, a lot in like—and absolutely head over heels in love with him and the completely lost look on his face over what in the hell he should do next. And while the Type A in me wants to tell him the answers, I don’t. My husband is trying to take care of me regardless of how awkward he feels and that’s a very special thing.

He lays the towel out over the comforter and then gently lifts my legs so my feet are positioned atop of it. And I stifle a laugh as Colton holds the bottle up of fire-engine red nail polish and reads the instructions on the back, his eyebrows furrowed and teeth biting his bottom lip as he concentrates. He chuckles and shakes his head as he grabs my foot.

“I must really love you because I’ve never done this for anyone before.” His cheeks flush with pink and his dimple deepens. All I can do is lean back, smile wide, and appreciate him all the more.

“Not even for Quin when you were kids?” I ask, thinking back to how sometimes Tanner would help me with girly stuff as long as I’d help him with icky boy stuff first.

“Nope,” he says as he concentrates on painting my big toe. He grimaces as I feel him wipe at the sides of my nail. I fight the grin pulling at my lips because I have a feeling I am going to have more polish on my skin than on my nails. But that’s okay. It doesn’t matter. He’s trying and that’s what matters most.

I stare at my husband—gorgeous, inside and out. He listened to my rant, and picked the thing he could do something about to try and help me. I’ve always known I’m a lucky woman to have found him, but never realized just how fortunate until right now.

I watch him concentrate as I try to let go of the chaos of the last week.

Angered shock: What I felt when I found out my picture was on the cover of People magazine. Inside, a blow-by-blow story about the video and a million other lies about my purported sexual preferences. Psychologists giving their two cents about the heightened arousal that some people get when they have sex in public with the risk of being caught. I wanted to scream—to rage—and tell them to stop telling lies. To explain it was a moment of heated passion that got carried away. Two people loving each other.

Two people who still love each other.

Confinement: How I felt when Dr. Steele made a house call—something she normally doesn’t do—because I couldn’t leave the house without paparazzi following me to her office. A doctor, whose clientele includes a high ratio of celebrities, is not too fond of photos being taken of her office as other patients come and go.

Exposed: Not being able to turn on the television, open my email, go onto Google without knowing there was a chance of seeing an image of myself.

Lonely: How I feel without seeing my boys daily. I miss their laughter, their bickering, and their smiles.

Validation: Watching Tawny come into view over Colton’s shoulder. Knowing he’d considered my feelings, confronting her in my presence when he’d promised he’d never see her again.

Hurt and hope: Colton’s unexpected speech last week as he left Sully’s Pub. Using my name and whore in the same sentence stabbed deeply into my resolve and stung enough that I’d picked a fight over it. But at the same time, I appreciated the fact he was saying something, doing something , to try and expose Eddie.

So many things, all unexpected, have caused my head to be in a constant whirl and our lives in upheaval even though I’ve never left the confines of our property.

“I wonder if your little speech the other night caused reporters to start digging up info on Eddie?” I murmur as I watch the top of his head.

He looks up and meets my eyes. “Not now, Ry. I don’t want to talk about any of that right now. I want to spend time with my wife, paint her toes, talk to her, and not let the outside world in, okay?” He nods his head to reinforce what he’s saying. “It’s just you and me and—”

“Nothing but sheets,” I finish for him, causing a huge grin to spread on those lips of his.

“I haven’t heard that phrase in a long time,” he says with a reflective laugh as he screws the cap onto the nail polish. I notice how much red is on his fingers from trying to fix his overage. He looks back down and shakes his head. “Not as good as when you do it, but—”

“It’s perfect,” I tell him without even looking at my toes. The overage of paint on my skin is almost like an added badge reflecting how much he loves me. “Besides, the part on my skin will come off in the shower.”

“It will?” he asks as he spreads his fingers out and looks at his own speckled with nail polish. My bad boy marked by the deeds of a good husband. “Thank Christ, because I was worried how I was going to get it off. I thought I was going to have to use carb cleaner.”

A giggle falls from my mouth and it feels so good. All of this does: his effort, his softer side, seeing him look so out of place, and simply spending time together.